Not a very productive day, word-wise. But I got laundry done, and some cleaning-up as well. So it goes.

This ends Chapter 2, which stared when Mackenzie started placing all these calls.

Also: today's excerpt is today's entire output. But it's not that much.

12,204 / 50,000(24.4%)

Mackenzie's voice reminded Pierce of the present once again. "Lost in thought, Ed? As I was saying, I owe Unity a debt on the Pallas Athena. I've agreed to accept a special assignment in exchange for forgiveness of my debt. Now, I know we were planning on you working on the Pallas Athena anyway, once we got the shipping business working again... My question to you, then, is this: will the fact that your paycheck's coming from the military again make a difference?"

"Sir, my job is to take care of the Pallas Athena. Where she goes, I go, as long as you'll have me. I do have to ask, though - is this going to be a combat assignment?"

Mackenzie smiled. "They've classified it as 'special operations'. I get the impression combat is a remote but real possibility."

Pierce nodded. "Well, I'd prefer it if the Pallas Athena not be put in a position where she'll get shot up, but I'll take care of her either way, sir."

"Thank you, Ed. Well... I suppose in the name of formality, I ought to be calling you Lieutenant Pierce now. I'm transmitting the commission and contract to you - please return them as soon as you can, and I'll get you on the Unity payroll. Not sure if you care, but there'll be a bonus for the special-ops work on the pay."

"That's just an added benefit, sir. I'm here for the ship."

"Thank you, Lt. Pierce. Report for duty in a week - we depart in ten days."

"Yes, sir."

"Mackenzie out." Pierce watched the vidphone blink out, rolling his eyes as he headed back to continue working on his car.

Mackenzie reclined in his chair and looked over his list of positions to fill on his ship. With Cmdr. Kevin Andrews as his first mate, Lt. Cmdr Anastasia Locke in charge of signals and intelligence, Lt. Cmdr. Aidan Curranor managing munitions and arms, and Lt. Edwin Pierce as chief engineer, Captain Mackenzie had himself the core of the crew of the Pallas Athena. He realized that the ship lacked a medic. However, he had some rudimentary medical training, as did Lt. Cmdr. Locke. He made a note to look for medical skills when recruiting the enlisted crew, but he didn't consider it too terribly pressing - after all, they weren't exactly headed into combat.

You can see I'm about 1600 words behind where I want to be too, and that isn't counting the fact that I haven't done any writing today.

One method I've seen going around is called the 3/30/10, where you write for 30 minutes straight, take a ten minute break, write for 30 more minutes, and so forth, three times. The whole routine takes two hours. If you can get four of those cycles done in a weekend, that's a solid six hours of actual writing time...